The harsh smell of bleach and antiseptic greeted Chloe as she slowly blinked her eyes open.
She stared at the white ceiling of the military infirmary. The buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead was adding to her headache. She tried to push herself up, gritting her teeth as a dull ache radiated from her forearms.
Her wrists were heavily wrapped in gauze. The cuts made by the handcuffs imprinted crimson stains on the wrapping.
A military medic standing near the counter jumped slightly at the sound of her movement. He looked at her with wide, wary eyes, his hand unconsciously drifting toward the sidearm holstered at his hip.
He had heard what happened in the command center. Everyone in the base had.
Chloe ignored his fear. She pulled the thin blanket off her legs and swung them over the edge of the cot.
She wasn't fully recovered. Her fingertips still felt cold, and her heartbeat pounded loudly in her ears, but she was mobile enough.
She didn't want to stay in this room any longer.
She walked past the trembling medic without a single word, stepping out into the underground corridors of the military installation.
The base was a hive of activity. Soldiers and logistical personnel rushed past her, carrying crates and clipboards. Whenever a soldier spotted Chloe walking down the hall, they immediately averted their gaze, stepping to the side to give her a wide berth.
Chloe couldn't bother to be offended right now.
Adam had kept his promise. They were safe here.
Chloe watched them for a moment before she continued walking. Eventually, she saw Ethan leaning casually against the wall outside a set of heavy wooden doors. He had a scavenged assault rifle slung over his shoulder, acting as a guard outside the room.
Ethan raised an eyebrow as she approached. "You shouldn't be walking around like that. You looked like a ghost an hour ago."
"I'm fine," Chloe replied softly. "What are they doing?"
Ethan's expression darkened slightly. "He's trying to figure out our perimeter problem. Apparently, there's a monster in the forest. Strong one too, by the sound of it. The General and his people call it the Phantom."
Chloe frowned. "What is it?"
"That's the problem," Ethan sighed, crossing his arms. "They know close to nothing about it. It isn't visible to any scouts, it doesn't leave tracks. It just waits for people to leave the base, and then they disappear."
Inside the meeting room, Adam stood over a large topographical map of the surrounding forest, his hands planted firmly on the table. He looked troubled as the General explained the situation.
Brigadier General Mercer stood across from him, pointing at various red markers scattered around the map.
Adam hated unknown variables. Facing an enemy that offered no data, no observable patterns, and no known weaknesses was the absolute worst-case scenario for him.
"How do we hunt it?" Chloe wondered aloud, standing next to Ethan.
"We don't," Ethan replied grimly. "Not until we know what we're looking at, that's for sure."
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Marcus stood in the crowded hallway of the civilian sector, shifting his weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other.
He was a thirty-four-year-old former architect. Before the apocalypse, his biggest concern had been meeting client deadlines and making sure he got home in time to read his daughter a bedtime story. His daughter and his wife were gone now, lost in the initial wave of the panic. The only thing he had left of them was a crumpled, blood-stained photograph tucked safely into his left chest pocket.
At this point, Marcus just wanted to live. He wanted to find a place where he didn't have to sleep with one eye open.
The military base was supposed to be that place. But right now, the base was completely overwhelmed.
The sudden influx of over fifty nervous civilians, returning to civilization after a long while, had severely strained the facility's limited plumbing and sanitary systems. The line for the nearest functional latrine stretched down the hall, with at least twenty people arguing and complaining ahead of him.
Marcus let out a frustrated groan. He really had to go.
'Forget this,' he thought, turning away from the line. 'I'll just find a spot near the motor pool.'
He navigated through the concrete tunnels, making his way up to the surface level of the compound. The evening air was cool and refreshing compared to the stuffy, crowded underground bunkers.
'I should come here more often,' he thought, as he stretched his arms and yawned loudly.
Marcus didn't notice that the two soldiers stationed at the nearest gate were entirely distracted, arguing about their upcoming shift change.
He passed by them unnoticed and stepped just outside the main clearing, entering the sparse tree line of the surrounding forest.
He didn't go far. He knew better than to wander into the deep woods. He just needed a tree.
He unzipped his pants with a heavy sigh of relief, leaning his free hand against the rough bark of an old pine tree. The quiet rustle of the leaves above was strangely peaceful. For a fleeting moment, he felt a genuine sense of normalcy return to him. He patted his chest pocket, feeling the crinkle of the photograph beneath the fabric.
SNAP
The sound of a breaking twig echoed loudly in the quiet forest.
Marcus froze. His heart hammered violently against his ribs. He quickly zipped up, his hands shaking. He reached to his lower back, drawing the revolver he had taken from a dead police officer days ago. He was one of the few combatants in Adam's group.
'Zombie? A dog? I can take 'em on!'
He raised the gun, his eyes wide as he slowly moved towards the source of the sound. He stepped carefully through the underbrush, his breathing shallow and rapid.
He peeked around the side of a large, moss-covered trunk, his finger trembling over the trigger.
There was nothing there.
Just a thick, broken stick resting in the dirt, likely fallen from the heavy canopy above.
Marcus stared at the stick for a long moment before letting out a shaky, breathless laugh.
"Paranoid," he whispered to himself, running a hand over his sweating forehead. "You are just paranoid."
He holstered the gun at his waist, letting out a long sigh of relief. He turned around, ready to head back to the safety of the base and the warm, crowded barracks.
He took a step back, but his boot did not hit solid ground. Instead, it sank into something thick, freezing, and entirely unnatural.
Marcus looked down in confusion. The shadows cast by the trees were bleeding together, pooling around his boots like a lake of black ink. His legs were slowly sinking into the liquid darkness, the freezing cold seeping right through his thick pants and numbing his skin.
Before he could even register the impossibility of the situation, a massive, terrifying presence materialized directly behind him.
A large shadow rose silently from the lake of darkness that had formed below his feet.
Marcus felt the heavy, suffocating aura of the monster wash over him. Panic flooded his mind. He had to survive. He tried to reach for the gun he had just holstered, his fingers desperately grabbing the grip of the weapon.
His fingers never reached the trigger.
A massive jaw snapped shut around Marcus's right shoulder and bicep. The beast bit down with incomprehensible force, the razor-sharp teeth shearing effortlessly through muscle, bone, and tendon.
With a casual, sickening jerk of its head, the beast tore his entire right arm completely off his body.
He was literally disarmed.
A horrific, agonizing scream tore its way up Marcus's throat, but before he could let it out, massive claws swiped across his neck with terrifying precision. The claws hooked into his flesh, violently tearing his throat out in a spray of hot, dark blood.
Marcus collapsed backward into the freezing lake of shadows, his body convulsing in absolute agony. He couldn't scream. He couldn't breathe.
He lay there, paralyzed by the pain and the numbing cold of the black liquid. His vision began to blur, the edges of his sight turning dark.
Towering above him, the panther-like creature looked down with glowing, feline amber eyes. It didn't eat him. It simply watched him with a cruel, intelligent curiosity. It watched the human gurgle and drown in his own blood, enjoying the slow, desperate suffocation of its prey with childlike glee.
Marcus felt his consciousness slipping away. His left hand twitched, weakly brushing against his chest pocket one last time.
The feline let out a low, satisfied purr. It clamped its jaws around the collar of Marcus's torn shirt, dragging the suffocating, dying man deeper into the darkness of the forest, leaving just a pool of blood behind that slowly dissolved into the shadow the panther carried with it.
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[Name: Lu Chunxia]
[Level: 8]
[Strength: 30]
[Speed: 25]
[Intelligence: 20]
[Endurance: 30]
[Stat Points: 9]
[Mana Pool: 200/200]
[Skills: Inspect Lv 6, Sanguis Arc Lv 4]